


A Shadow of Dying Will

by ForestAngel



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForestAngel/pseuds/ForestAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...In which Nara Shikako has been thrown into yet another life, in yet another universe. This time however, her new family is even more troublesome than the pesky rainbow mafia lineage could account for. Really, whoever thought it would be a good idea to give Sawada Iemitsu the ability to set himself on fire - at will - deserves her most insidious explosive tags, turned up to 11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter the Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dreaming of Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/53648) by Silver Queen. 
  * Inspired by [And Fate Shall Not Be Tested](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914181) by [witchbreaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchbreaker/pseuds/witchbreaker). 



> **Disclaimer:**  
>  _Katekyō Hitman Reborn!_ officially belongs to Akira Amano, Viz Media and their affiliates.  
>  _Naruto_ belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and affiliates.  
>  _Dreaming of Sunshine_ is the brainchild of the wonderfully talented and dedicated Silver Queen, Queen of Self-Inserts.  
>  _Fate Shall Not Be Tested_ is a spin-off (recursive) fanfiction of _Dreaming of Sunshine_ , brainchild of the equally creative ByeByeBriar (witchbreaker).  
> I'm just the shy interloper playing in their sandbox. No copyright infringement intended.
> 
> The original premise of this story came from a snippet posted by TsukiRiver on the _Dreaming of Sunshine_ forum on Fanfiction.net: Nara Shikako has been reincarnated in the KHR!verse as Sawada Iemitsu's sister. When her new brother fumbles boisterously, as was his wont, into one of the biggest mafia famiglia in Italy, she takes to the shadows once again to protect him from afar. I took the initial concept and ran with it. Special thanks for spawning these additional snippets, TsukiRiver!

**Family History**

As a rising star in information brokerage (thank you, Jiraiya-sama), it didn’t take Sawada Suiko long before she dug up information on the Vongola Primo. After all, The Great Sky and his guardians were practically legends in the mafia world. She had made it a priority to investigate all she could about the Vongola after she tracked down the organization that her brother had joined. Her brother may be an idiot, but he was HER idiot. Protecting him was her duty; protecting him from the SHADOWS? Child’s play.

This included a comprehensive history on the bloodiest, most powerful mafia famiglia in the world. While disappointing, Suiko was not surprised that Vongola started out as a vigilante organization before it descended into its present-day, bloody incarnation. Did not Senju Hashirama-sama’s ploy – to distribute the tailed beasts among the five great hidden ninja villages, in a bid for peace – backfire on him?

It was not as if she could protest the bloodshed. She had once been a jounin-level ninja in service of Konohagakure; killing had been part of the job description, even if Konoha had been the ‘nice’ village. And it wasn’t as if all her subsequent lives had been free of war and violence.

Nor was she surprised by the existence of Dying Will Flames. Her brother had been an average, if charismatic student in high school, who had been popular and talented at sports. Something had to have happened to make him drop out of college and join CEDEF so suddenly. Being able to light oneself on fire was not the weirdest catalyst she could think of.   

Finding out she and her brother were descended from Sawada Ieyasu, a.k.a. Giotto di Vongola, the Vongola Primo? She had not expected THAT!

 

* * *

 

**Resolve**

Her illustrious ancestor being who he was, Suiko had the ability to wield Sky flames. How she activated her flames was best left untold, apart from mentioning that it involved a stag, a beaver dam, and a waterfall.

Surprisingly, they were her secondary flames. Sky flames, with their property of harmonization, usually overwhelmed or assimilated all other potential flame types in a Dying Will Flame user. There had been the odd user – like the Vongola Secondo – whose secondary (Storm) flames were equally as strong as his primary Sky ones, harmonizing to form his signature Wrath flames.

But Suiko’s primary flames were a cool violet. Her soul was beyond tired, having lived through so many lifetimes, having loved and lost time and time again. She still had her resolve to protect and nurture, but she had almost exhausted her capacity to form new bonds. Unfettered, aloof, protective but drifting her own way…Cloud flames suited the state of her old soul perfectly.

Besides, clouds cast shadows.

 

* * *

 

**Rivalry**

She had been tracking down a target in her assassin persona, out in the middle of nowhere Asia, when she first met him. The oddly-coordinated Chinese toddler, sporting a muted red chongsam and a long black braid, had been after the same target. When he noticed her presence, he wasted no time putting on a burst of speed no two-year-old – even ninja-born – should have been able to go. Ghosting up on the unsuspecting target, the little monkey on his shoulder equally silent, the target was eliminated with a graceful jump and a quick twist of the head. By the time she got close enough to verify the status of the target, the toddler and his monkey had already made their escape on a large crow. Her last glimpse of him was an apologetic smile before the crow and his passengers flew out of sight.

It was not her first time meeting an Arcobaleno; the cursed-infant Mist was an amusing acquaintance and an occasional client of her intel brokerage network. Based on the gossip Suiko had gleaned – paid for with chocolate chip cookies and strawberry milkshakes – the Chinese toddler was Fong, the Storm Arcobaleno. Suiko was disgruntled he had stolen her target; but high-bounty targets often had multiple bounty hunters after them.

The second time she encountered Fong was in passing. She was in Bangkok to meet with a contact in her information network; they walked pass each other in the airport. It was doubtful he recognized her in this different guise. She had made very sure that her intel and assassin personas could not be linked. Nevertheless, she spent a moment wondering why no one in the airport batted an eye when they saw a traditionally dressed Chinese toddler wandering around, without supervision, and with a monkey clinging to his head. Her mind then turned to her upcoming meeting, and Suiko paid him little further thought until she ran into him the third time.    

The third time was also the second time he had stolen her target. Ever present smug smile on his face, he had the audacity to POKE HER FOREHEAD before he once again jumped on his crow. Roundly cursing him and his snickering monkey, she flipped him off, even as her mind raced.

The next time they were once again after the same target, she was prepared. Cloud propagation was a wonderful thing, as long as one had the imagination or experience to harness it properly. She had both – and well, once a Nara, always a Nara. When she propagated her shadow and impaled the target with a shadow spike? The look on his face – Itachi-Fong-whatever-his-name-is-now – was priceless.


	2. Enter Shikabane-hime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sawada Suiko gains back her beloved fuinjutsu, explosive title inclusive.

**Script**

The first time she picked up a brush and wrote an explosive seal on her practice calligraphy paper, she channeled her Flames into said seal. She started with the fuinjutsu she learned in Konoha, specifically scripted for chakra use.

The paper burned to a crisp. Subsequent testing with other runic systems and styles she had learned over other lifetimes yielded the same negative results. Dying Will Flames were neither chakra nor magic.

Somewhat desperately, she used her Flame-infused blood as ink; she theorized that, as chakra contained a physical and spiritual component, her blood may count for the former while the Flames acted as the latter. Speed-writing a new seal, she then dashed away (she never did figure out how to eliminate that three second delay when using a blood-powered explosive seal). She needn’t have bothered. The seal did precisely nothing, no matter how long she waited.

Stumped, she reluctantly turned back to tend to her expanding intel network. Yet always, the issue percolated in the back of her mind. The part of her that was once one of the greatest Seal Masters in Konoha ached from the loss.

 

* * *

 

**Cascade**

It took a cursory glance at a physics textbook to reframe her thinking. As much as Dying Will Flames were unlike chakra or any system of magic she had ever been exposed to in her various lifetimes, Flames had recognizable properties. Properties that could be observed, measured, quantified or qualified. She thought back to her extra-curricular reading during her college years. She vaguely remembered coming across a couple of French scientific articles by a Verde Monmartin regarding flames with unusual properties. They had not made much sense at the time (which really should have made her suspicious; but she had still been relishing in the sheer normalcy of her life at that point in time, and had ignored that nagging feeling in the back of her mind). But with what she knew now…

The articles were dated, but the quantitative and qualitative analyses on the types of Dying Will Flames of the Sky were just what she had needed. Sky Flames contained the property of harmonization; they were driven to _balance_. Equations just begged to be balanced. Her dark eyes gleamed like embers.

Drawing on memories of one of her past lives as a researcher and part-time crime solver (221B Baker St was real that time around), her calligraphy brush swished across the rice paper. Her Sky Flames quivered in anticipation deep within her core.

When the explosion went off this time in a burst of orange flame, Suiko laughed with joy. The phantom ache inside her released.

* * *

 

**Company**

“The only way to escape the Kowloon Walled City was to work for the Triads in some manner,” Fong informed her between sips of tea. They were in a private tea room at one of Fong’s favourite tea houses in Northern Japan, secured behind Suiko’s Flame seal. “With my prior…experience, it was not long until they assigned me training as an assassin.” Suiko snorted; prior ‘experience’ as the once prodigy of the power-hungry Uchiha Clan meant that the Triads probably snapped him up faster than the namesake Itachi now bore. 

They had stopped trying to upstage each other on missions before they reached Kakashi-vs-Gai level of creepiness. Bi-monthly meetings over tea and dango became a habit instead. If there was one thing Itachi – Fong, now, she had to remember not to slip up – had a weakness for, besides dango, it was quality tea. Suiko still had to use all her willpower not to coo as Fong lifted an oversized teacup with toddler hands and brought it up to slightly rounded cheeks, baby fat evident. Fong’s monkey companion, Lichi, chittered a scolding at her, as if divining her thoughts.

“How did you end up as…” Suiko gestured to his cursed form hesitantly.

“I eventually built up a reputation as a martial artist as part of my cover,” Fong answered, prompting a nod from Suiko. She knew he had consistently ranked first in virtually all competitions of various martial art disciplines he had joined, which was not surprising. Even an average chuunin of Konoha would have found the martial arts of this world vaguely simplistic after taijutsu. “It gained me enough international acclaim, even through the underworld channels, that I had a measure of freedom in the missions I took. One day, I was approached by a man in a Checkered Mask with a job offer to work with a highly select team of Flame users, ‘I Prescelti Sette’, on specialized missions. The team gathered was diverse, and not all were affiliated with the underworld, though most of them had ties to various mafia famiglia. The circumstances were suspicious, but at the time my handlers in the Triads were pointedly persuading me to…settle down.” Suiko chuckled in understanding. World’s Greatest martial artist with unparalleled control over Storm Flames – of course Fong would be well sought after.

“This…” – Fong touched the red baby pacifier hanging off his neck like a choker – “happened without warning, except maybe for Luce, who claimed to be a seer.” And he explained about the purpose of the pacifiers as part of the fabled Tri-Ni-Sette that governed the balance of the world. Suiko listened to the farfetched story without interruption. Both she, and Fong she suspect, had been through equally unbelievable circumstances in their previous lives.   

“Ironically, despite the restrictions of a compressed body,” Fong concluded contemplatively, “At least it put a permanent end to the Matchmakers.” Suiko cackled.

 

* * *

 

**Any Other Name**

Touch blasts and storage seals became signature uses of her Sky Flames. And Cloud propagation ensured that her Sky Flame-activated explosive tags never ran out – and in fact packed even more of a punch with the introduction of Cloud Flames. A third of her missions became explosively messy.

A bemused Fong informed Suiko of the rumours circulating in Mafia circles of a new demolitions expert, nicknamed ‘Principessa di Cadavere’. Suiko laughed, and laughed, then she cried, thoroughly alarming Fong and Lichi. _Curse you, Ino, I can never escape that name. I miss you so much._


	3. Enter the Aunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sawada Suiko decides to settle down and raise the next generation (without first having to go through childbirth).

**Family Affairs**

Fukui Nana was unlike anyone Suiko had ever met before, in this life or the ones before. It wasn’t that she was unintelligent or lacking in drive. Rather, she seemed determinedly happy to ignore inconsistencies, and single-mindedly attributed the most innocuous explanations to even the most outrageous things. If there was ever a living embodiment of the phrase ‘ignorant bliss’, thy name would be Fukui – soon-to-be Sawada – Nana. Suiko could not recall anyone else who took rationalization that far in order to remain obliviously cheerful with life.

Still, Nana was not dishonest or mean-spirited; she was just a textbook example of a Yamato Nadeshiko, and madly in love with her brother. She made Iemitsu disgustingly sappy and over the moon. Suiko could love her for making her brother happy, if not her brother’s terrible, Nana-inspired attempts at butchering haikus and Italian love songs. Their mother also found her tolerable, if naïve; in turn, Nana was content to defer to her mother-in-law in all things.

The Shinto wedding went off without a hitch, though it had unfortunately been delayed due to the tragic deaths of Nana’s parents and grandparents in a car accident. Iemitsu only had three months off from  work before he had to fly back out to Italy again, but Nana obligingly moved in with their mother, who was still living in Suiko’s and Iemitsu’s childhood home in Namimori. As the Sawada siblings had long since left the nest, Suiko was of the opinion that the company did both Nana and their mother good.

 

* * *

**Homeward Bound**

Suiko had set up various safe-houses, using various aliases and spread out over three continents, originally to facilitate access to her intel agents. Nowadays, with both the prevalence of internet connectivity and the latest advances in encryption technology – made even more secure with Suiko’s unique foreknowledge – there was rarely a need to meet with established agents in person. So these landing pads were mostly used as temporary bases for either her assassination missions, or to cultivate new contacts for her intelligence network.

During her downtimes, she rotated between her three favourite residences: a townhouse in Boston, USA, a chalet in Annecy, France, and a condo in Sendai, Japan. It was not until she received the news that she was about to have a nephew that her hyper-intuition pushed her to seriously consider settling down. That niggling feeling told her that moving back to Namimori was going to be important. 

 

* * *

**Precious People**

Sawada Suiko loved her current mother for her practicality and resourcefulness in raising two children by herself after the early death of her workaholic father. She looked after Iemitsu because, spurious excuses, foolish hijinks and lack of true fraternal connection aside, he was her brother. She regarded Nana with a distant sort of affection, along with appreciation for her sister-in-law’s cooking prowess. After lifetimes of throwing herself heart and soul into caring for others, without promise of ever seeing them again, she needed to remain detached this time around. For the sake of holding together what was left of her broken and weary heart, Suiko would protect her family from the shadows without being truly invested.

That all changed the first time she held her nephew. The moment Suiko’s eyes met those of the newborn Sawada Tsunayoshi, both their eyes flashed orange – the colour of their Sky Flames (Naruto’s favourite colour). From that day onwards, little Tsunayoshi was one of Suiko’s precious people.

 

* * *

 

**Settling In**

Soon after Tsunayoshi’s birth, his proud grandmother’s health started failing. Since Iemitsu was tied up with his promotion to head of CEDEF, Suiko stuck around Namimori to help out her mother and Nana. Her cover as an author who traveled for ‘research’ (she was highly reluctant to use something so cliché, but as Jiraiya has proved, it worked), was accepted by the neighbourhood without problems. It hadn’t been hard to turn some of her past adventures into prose; indeed, in the last few years she had built up a quiet but respectable fan-base for both her Japanese and English works. It also helped to purge the ghosts of some of the more soul-wrenching memories. The final benefit was that she had an excuse to get her own place – authors were known to be eccentric about their writing environment.

She eventually settled on a secluded property near the Namimori shrine, on the edge of the Death Mountain Forest. The house had a traditional floorplan, retrofitted with modern fixtures and utilities. The sprawling property, however, included a meditation garden and tea house, with a magnificent view of the forest and the mountain beyond. If she squinted, she could almost convince herself she was back in the Nara compound in Konoha.

Nana, visiting for the first time with baby Tsuna-chan in a cute green baby carrier, was in raptures over the house and garden. Suiko’s mother, however, did not care for the forest practically in her daughter’s backyard. Thus, Suiko spent most of her time while not in training, or managing her information network, back in the Namimori city-centre, running errands for her mother and Nana. It gave her the chance to reconnect with old schoolmates with whom she had amiable, but not deep, friendships. She was not much inclined to socialize these days, Fong aside; but she knew the value of local gossip, and _was_ inclined to use any tool at hand to make sure Namimori was a safe environment for her nephew to grow up in.


	4. Enter the Sky-Cloud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sawada Suiko shows the world (well, just Iemitsu for now, but the rest of the world - looking at you, Vongola Nono - will get theirs one day) just why it is such a dumb idea to mess with her precious people.

**Fury**

Suiko had forgiven Iemitsu for a lot of things throughout their lives. She had forgiven him for pulling on her pigtails until she cried when they were children; she had forgiven him for constantly tracking mud into her room and ruining her favourite bedcovers during their teenage years; for keeping her and their mother in the dark about his association with the mafia; for putting his job before his family; for the odd times that he did return home to visit, he expected his wife, mother and sister to wait upon him hand and foot while he bummed around their mother’s house like a freeloading drunk; she had even forgiven him for not making it back in time for their mother’s funeral, leaving her and Nana to carry out all the funeral arrangements while juggling a toddler Tsunayoshi.

However, the moment she returned to Namimori from one of her ‘research’ trips to find a seal on her nephew’s forehead, her tolerance for her self-centred brother was over. She had thought that, even with his dubious track record, Iemitsu love his family and would do everything to protect them; that was the reason she had timed her overseas trip to coincide with his visit home. Coming back to find her precious Tsunayoshi tripping everywhere, a shadow of his former vibrant self, and sky-mist flames hovering near his flame core – she was immediately incandescent; purple-orange with fury. Only the fact that Iemitsu’s was not the flame signature on the seal saved him from an impromptu – and likely to be very permanent – final visit from his sister in Hyper Dying Will mode.

Suiko only calmed down when her intuition alerted her to Tsuna’s distress. Yet even as she soothed her wounded nephew, who had been chased down by the neighbour’s Chihuahua again, she vowed retribution towards Timoteo di Vongola and his precious mafia famiglia for messing with the wrong Fuinjutsu Mistress’ nephew. It did not pay to make an enemy of someone nicknamed Corpse Princess, after all.

 

* * *

**Dialogue**

“Ciao-”

“ _Iemitsu.”_

“…Suiko?! How did you get this number? Is everything ok? Are Nana and my darling Tuna-fish…”

_“Shut up, Iemitsu. You have no right to even ask after them, especially after what you let happen to Tsuna.”_

“Wha…I have no idea wh-”

_“I said shut up, Otouto._ _I am at the end of my tolerance. I have cleaned up your messes for far too long, hoping you would have learnt something. But this time you let your incompetence harm MY family. No more.”_

“I –”

_“Here’s what’s going to happen. On your desk you will find paperwork making me Tsuna’s legal guardian. You will sign it. It will make its way into my mailslot within ten business days. Once you have done so, neither you nor your precious boss will be allowed to speak with Tsuna unless myself, Nana or an approved designate are present.”_

“But I’m the boy’s father! You have no right –”

_“I have every right, the moment you decided your job was more important than your wife and son. You will do this, Iemitsu, or I will sit Nana down and inform her of your occupation, the identity of your boss, and detail exactly what you allowed to happen to your son when you stood by and allowed your boss to seal Tsunayoshi’s Flames.”_

“How did you even know –”

_“Ten days, Iemitsu” – click –._

 

* * *

**Cherished**

For as long as Sawada Tsunayoshi could remember, the world had been a scary place. From the neighbour's Chihuahua to the bullies at school, from incomprehensible homework to Hibari-san – who rules the primary school with iron tonfas (someone have mercy, WHY would anyone give such a violent 9-year-old Iron Tonfas?!) – young Tsuna had only a passing acquaintance with the feeling of safety. Even his home turned out to be a serious hazard to him most days. Constantly knocking things over (more like BEING knocked down by things, really) and falling down the stairs had started to become so commonplace his mother, Sawada Nana, had started asking what was wrong if he DIDN'T tumble down the stairs for breakfast. It was a wonder why he even got out of bed some days.  
  
Then he'd tumble out of bed for his daily faceplant out of sheer panic at the most terrifying reason of them all - his paternal aunt, Sawada Suiko. As if his bullies and his klutziness didn't make him fall enough, his scary Aunt expected him to make himself fall on purpose.  
  
Each morning without fail, Suiko-ba-san dragged him out of bed for 'falling' practice. They would greet his mama in the kitchen, who would hand Tsuna a warm cup of juice. Suiko-ba-san would watch him drink with judging, intense eyes (he'd hieed and spilt his juice a lot until he'd learnt to ignore that heavy gaze), before herding him out to the backyard. She would take him through some weird stretching routine in the backyard, complete with song, before telling him to fall - properly. And keep falling until it was time for school. Each afternoon after school, he would find Suiko-ba-san waiting for him by the school gates. They would head to her house by the forest (why would his aunt even live next to the Forest of Death?!), where his aunt would make him do his (incomprehensible) homework, before forcing him to do the whole sorry routine again. The one time he successfully snuck by her after school (or so he thought - he found out later that she'd let him do so), he'd found both his aunt and mama by his bed the next morning. The looks they'd given him were enough to make him babble apologies and promises to never skip again, but he'd still gotten two weeks of (age appropriate) chores and the confiscation of his manga. He never tried to skip a falling session again.  
  
Thing was, with such endorsement, Tsuna should have been utterly terrified of his aunt. Make no mistake, he was in no doubt that Suiko-ba-san was as formidable as the Empress she'd been named after. Yet paradoxically enough, his time with Suiko-ba-san was the safest he'd felt since his father's ill-fated visit back when he was five.  
  
Perhaps it was because his aunt was the only person in his life who believed he could amount to someone other than a failure.  
  
His teachers have long since stopped looking at him in disappointment in favour of faintly exasperated resignation each time he was unable to answer a question when called upon - if they bothered to call on him at all. His classmates laughed at his sheer clumsiness and called him dame. He was a favorite target for his elementary school's resident gang of bullies (whenever said bullies were not busy running away from Hibari-san or avoiding Suiko-ba-san). Even his own mom - whom he KNEW loved him to bits, only gave little sighs now whenever he brought home another failed pop quiz.  
  
But Suiko-ba-san didn't see him as useless. It took him a long time to work out what that niggling feeling in the back of his head was telling him – not the least because the kindest description for his aunt's default expression was 'blank-faced intimidation' – but Suiko-ba-san pushed because she saw something more than 'Dame-Tsuna'. More than that – she barked orders, and glared him into falling practice, and withheld his mom's cookies until he'd finished his homework, because she won't give up until Tsuna became what she saw in him; and she won't let Tsuna give up on himself either.  
  
Suiko-ba-san may be the scariest person in Namimori – yes, even scarier than Hibari-san! – but Tsuna knew that this is one adult that will always be in his corner. He didn't even need that contented churring in the back of his mind to tell him that.


	5. Enter Occam's (Sky Flame) Razor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the seal on the Flames of the future Vongola Decimo is broken with diligent applications of forehead pokes and a Hibari.

**BREAKTHROUGH  
**

Breaking the seal over Tsuna’s Sky Flames was not dependent on painstaking hours of pouring over dusty esoteric tomes (though Suiko did a lot of those); nor did it necessitate ancient magical rituals under a full moon (thank the Sages!). It was actually very straight forward in theory. All Suiko had to do was match the frequency of her Sky Flames to first Vongola Nono’s mist flames (which were obscuring the seal) ‘will’ it to dissipate, then do the same to the actual seal below (though calling it a seal was a bit of a misnomer; it was more like a metaphysical cork plugging Tsuna’s Flame core, held together by Sky Flames and the Ninth’s ‘will’).

The tricky part was, with how close the Flame core is to Tsuna’s brain, any overexertion of Suiko’s ‘will’ could irrevocably damage both her nephew’s Flame core and his nervous system. So despite how much her Cloud instincts were prodding her to charge in and rip apart the seal, Sky and Cloud flames blazing, she quashed it in favour of her Hyperintuition. It would take time and delicacy to whittle away at the Flame ‘seal’ and weaken it enough for Tsuna’s own Sky Flames to break through.

With a mental smirk, Suiko borrowed a mannerism off of Fong’s past self. Normally, such brief contact would have been a bit risky, but Suiko by now had enough familiarity with and control over her Flames to pull it off. It was also a completely innocuous gesture for public consumption, if teasing; Tsuna’s expression of long-suffering – and ‘hie’ of exasperation – every time she poked his forehead was a definite bonus.

How to motivate Tsuna into breaking the seal, though, was the real conundrum. It was highly unlikely her nephew would muster up the resolve necessary without a swift kick (or dozen) to the behind; but she wasn’t about to purposely manufacture a life-threatening situation for Tsuna either. Fortunately for the once-Nara (though unfortunately for Tsuna), even that conundrum resolved itself (Ha!) satisfactorily without much exertion on her part.

It went something like this:

Ever since his training with his aunt started to kick in during Tsuna’s confrontations with the resident Namimori Elementary gang of bullies, those confrontations started happening less and less. It was just Tsuna’s luck that those bullies got a drop on him that afternoon while he was on his way to Suiko-ba-san’s.

Nevertheless, his ‘falling practice’ held, and Tsuna was able to evade most of the clumsy punches and kicks being rained on him. He was also getting good at spotting openings (though he would never admit to intentionally ‘allow’ himself to fall just to create an opening to run for it). It was usually enough for him take advantage of those openings and run towards his Suiko-ba-san’s compound like his neighbour’s Chihuahua was on his heels. His stamina had also improved a lot under his aunt’s spartan training; so even with all the times he tripped and fell on the way, he usually made it to Suiko-ba-san’s without further incident. Everyone in Namimori knew not to bother Suiko-ba-san, though she was not feared like Hibari-san was. All the adults were happy to gossip and tell her things (though they strangely never brought up ‘Dame-Tsuna’ in her presence), but was respectful enough not to ever pry into her business.

Speaking of the devil, the ambush site the bullies chose today just happened to be off of the entrance to Namimori Middle. Thus, Tsuna found his luck compounded today, just as he was about to make a break for it, by the dulcet tones of an adolescent Skylark ready to pick a fight.

“For disturbing the peace of Namimori, I will bite you all to death.” (For all his faults, let it not be said that Hibari Kyoya was not an equal opportunity enforcer. He beat up everyone equally, no matter they be male or female, adult or child, if they had been ‘disturbing the peace’.)

Giving a startled yelp, Tsuna relied on that niggling feeling in the back of his head to dive out of the way, just as his unwitting ‘saviour’ descended upon the gang of bullies. As his former tormenters were tormented themselves in turn (much more successfully, a detached part of Tsuna noticed, as he watched Hibari-san’s tonfas mete out justice with unerring thwacks; it was horrifying but strangely compelling – like a trainwreck, Tsuna could not look away). He took the opportunity provided by the reprieve to catch his breath.

A prickling at the back of his neck made Tsuna’s head snap back up, just in time for Hibari-san to finish with the last member of the gang still standing. Unceremoniously, the bloodthirsty thirteen year old then turned his attention to Tsuna, ignoring the dramatic way that last bully flop onto the pile of beaten-up kids that were his fellow bullies.

“Er…thank you Hibari-san,” Tsuna stuttered out with a bow, almost tripping again in his nervousness. Hibari-san was crazy scary still, even if Tsuna had experience with Suiko-ba-san. “I’ll…just be going now.” And then Tsuna did the stupidest thing he could have done in those circumstances: he ran.

Now, Hibari Kyouya may have been violent and blood-thirsty and borderline feral in the eyes of the residents of Namimori, but he had been raised to have a strict moral code. Said code was perhaps something only another Hibari could understand, but it did not (usually) include beating up the victims of bullying. He had a strange fondness for small animals, herbivores though they may be. Kyouya had not intended to beat up Sawada Tsunayoshi at first…

(though an impromptu spar was not out of the question; in fact, he was rather impressed with Sawada’s dodging skills, clumsy though the small animal may naturally be. Alas, his great-uncle had impressed on him, with great prejudice, that descending upon a victim of bullying, right after beating up said bullies, did not constitute as a proper challenge for an impromptu spar. Great-uncle Fong was the only one who still visited – regularly, if sparsely – since his parents left. He liked his great-uncle’s animal companions, and that Fong did not coddle him in spars; so he tolerated Fong’s sometimes herbivorous teachings…but that is another story altogether)

…but then Sawada ran off, and – being Hibari and thirteen and full of the instincts of a carnivore – Kyouya naturally gave chase.

“Hieeeee,” that was enough to push Tsuna into a full grown panic. ‘I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die,’ he mentally chanted. ‘Suiko-ba-san would take care of Mama, but I don’t want to die (don’t want to disappoint Suiko-ba-san).’ With that last thought – just he reached the edge of the forest that bordered his aunts property; just as Hibari was about to pounce – Tsuna burst into Flames.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't actually have any intention of writing this scene. Then a few reviewers asked about Hibari Kyouya. He threatened to bite me to death, but now I know how KHR!AuntShikako broke through Tsuna's seal. And also that Kyouya has a soft spot for his Great-Uncle Fong (and his giant crow, though that monkey of his is annoying, always stealing Kyouya's lychee) in this particular universe. So thank you all of you reviewers, especially @eirame and @Xenocanaan, and hope you enjoyed. This would literally not have happened without your encouragement and kind messages.


End file.
